Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box

The Stealing the Network series of books is in a catagory on it's own. Thrilling, entertaining, and fun to read just scratches the surface of these books. I'll recommend this book to anybody, from joe sixpack who only uses the internet for games and pr0n to mitnick himself. The highly detailed accounts immerse the reader in a truly fantastic series of stories of hackers and their techniques. Remember, the game is a mental one...

In some ways I though this would be a recipe book of hacks like most in this category. This book has great stories about hacks from the hackers point of view. It is a lot of fun following the thought process as the hack's progress. There is a technical side to the book, but its buried within the stories. I will go back through the book again and make notes of the different techniques used. So if you're tired of seeing screen shots of a debugger doing hex dump for some nerd stealing or saving the world and want some realistic stories, this is the book to get.

Is this book relevant? Read chapter 2 and compare it to the events of the last two weeks - Blaster and Nachi (the fixer) I started telling people around the office about the fictional story (hah) becoming reality and they thought I was talking about the twilight zone. This book rocks!!

Normally I don't review fiction books because I find that those books don't capture my attention. Stealing the Network is the exception to the rule as I found myself completely engulfed in each story. Nine different authors come together to show you a world you may have heard about but never thought could, would or will ever happen to you and your company - the act of being hacked and having information stolen. These guys hold senior IT positions with years of experience and they share what they know with you to help you better understand the mindset of the hacker. I found the stories enlightening as well as a little frightening, and even a little intriguing. Overall this book was a great read with a healthy dose of reality mixed in.

Ok, maybe I'm a bit of a geek, but I loved this book. The book is a collection of short stories about hackers stealing information or seriously messing with people. There's also one great story at the end about a guy tracking a hacker and catching hem. I like the book so much because the stories were really entertaining and the attacks were very detailed and well thought out. So, in addition to being enertained you also actaully learn something about security. There are so many "hacking" books out now, I was glad to find one that is really different. The stories do a great job of giving security professionals insight into how/why criminal hackers do what they do, without being condascending or just goofy like a lot of the hacker type stuff you see on TV or read in the main stream press.